PUBG: Battlegrounds free-to-play move brought in over 80k new users daily

pcgamesinsider.biz:

Battle royale progenitor PUBG: Battlegrounds saw a decent increase in daily active players in the wake of going free-to-play.

That's according to a financial report from publisher Krafton – spotted by Eurogamer – in which the company revealed that the game was bringing in around 80,000 new players every day. The average revenue spent per user across both PC and console rose by over 20 per cent on the previous financial quarter. 94 per cent of revenue for PUBG: Battlegrounds came from outside Krafton's native South Korea.

PUBG: Battlegrounds initially launched as Playerunknown's Battlegrounds back in 2017. The first release was into Steam Early Access before coming to console, starting with Xbox, at the end of that year.

The game was rebranded as PUBG: Battlegrounds in July 2021 ahead of going free-to-play in January of this year.

Earlier this year, the game's creative director Dave Curd insisted that the transition to free-to-play had nothing to do with other similar games that used the same business model. 

"This is in no way a response to the other titles you've mentioned," he said at the time. 

"They're all great games which specialise in their own unique strengths, just as we do. We develop our game independently of others and are excited to see what is to come."